By Colby Horton
Shop Site of the Month
Stop & Steer - Saint Clair Shores, Mich.
www.stopandsteer.com
This site offers an appealing design and color scheme, complete with professional graphics and easy navigation. The shop offers specials to its Internet visitors and gives customers the ability to schedule an appointment online. The shop's quarterly newsletter is also published online, giving automotive tips to existing and potential customers.
Web Wise
Protecting Your Computer from Invasive Viruses
The first Internet “worm” was released in 1988, before the Internet was a household entity, temporarily disabling 10 percent of Internet hosts. Worms and viruses have been tracked for more than a decade now, but their potential threats have increased substantially in recent years. According to industry experts, dozens of new worms and viruses are released each week, causing inconvenience and loss for Internet users.
In July, the invasive Sircam virus spread rapidly, sending out personal files to people on the infected person's e-mail address book. With so many malicious viruses being unleashed, you should take measures to protect your personal and shop computers.
Most e-mail viruses are sent in an attachment. Although not all attachments are viruses, you should be cautious in opening them. As a general rule, do not open attachments ending in .bat, .exe, .com, .pif or .zip. Most people whose computers are contaminated with a virus never know they have it. Before opening any attachments, send a friendly e-mail to the sender asking what the attachment is and if they meant to send it. You don't have to worry about attached images (.jpg, .gif, .bmp, or .tif) or text files (.txt). These files are safe to open and will not contain a virus.
Look for double extensions on attachments. For example, if you receive an attachment named “attachment.doc.pif,” do not open it. This is a sure sign of an infected attachment. For years, experts believed that the only way to receive a virus was to open an attachment. Now, you can get a virus just by reading your e-mail. New code allows programmers to send e-mail complete with backgrounds, special text fonts and graphical elements. A virus could be embedded in this code. As a precaution, go to your e-mail program's preferences and turn off all references to ActiveX, Java Script or any other special effects.
Your best defense against receiving and passing on viruses is to update your virus protection program. These programs are meant to detect and erase viruses off your computer. Further instructions on how to remove certain viruses from an infected computer can be obtained from most anti-virus Web sites.
Net Numbers
More than 57,000 virus threats exist today.
Source: McAffee (NCTA)
ASA Web Ways
Register for CARS 2001 Online
Online registration for the 2001 Congress of Automotive Repair and Service (CARS) is now available in the ASA Events section of the ASA Web site (www.asashop.org). Register using secure Web pages and alleviate the hassle of filling out forms by hand and returning them by mail.
CARS 2001 will be held at the Tropicana Resort & Casino in Las Vegas, Nov. 1-3. In addition to online registration, you can also view the CARS online brochure, complete with a calendar of events, seminar and course descriptions, and places to visit in Las Vegas.
